Entangled Nightmares
by SurferSquid
Summary: When dreams collide. Started as post Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords putterings...turned into something slightly different.


Entangled Nightmares

"Mith Yudit has run away again."

_Again? _Axum Manthus sighed. The Arcona Padawan was perpetually missing from the Dantooine Jedi Enclave, which was supposed to have been a haven and training facility for Force-sensitive beings of all ages after being rebuilt from the ruins of a former and stricter Order. The brown-haired woman sitting in front of him, after returning from the Unknown Regions, had built the Jedi Order from the ground up, and made significant changes.

"What would you have me do, Master Arathasis?" Axum asked in his low, resounding voice, bowing to the Human female as his crest mottled dark blue with slight exasperation. The fourteen-foot-tall, cyan-skinned Anx had to bow lower than most to convey a proper amount of respect; thankfully the architects and engineers had seen fit to give most rooms in the rebuilt Enclave high ceilings. Axum was sure this had more to do with giving the facility an aura of grandeur and openness than accommodating tall species, but he wouldn't complain.

"Go after her, please," the woman replied, resting her cheek in her palm and looking up at the Anx with weary stone-grey eyes. Axum only knew a fraction of the tales she could tell, and he'd been here over a decade. "She seems to be closest to you, as her combat instructor."

Axum smirked a little at this. His overall combat skill was second to none amongst the other Knights. Sure, some of them could swing a lightsaber or Force-jump around better than him, but he knew how bodies moved and worked, knew their straining and breaking points, and had mastered the structural strengths and weaknesses of five hundred physiologies. When lightsabers and Force powers were out of the picture, he was unbeatable. "As you wish, Master Arathasis," he said with another bow before turning and making his way out of the room at a smooth clip.

His species, because of their size, had garnered a reputation for being slow and lumbering, but this was not the case in the least. Axum supposed this was mostly because of the image conveyed by various older senators, and because to humanoids, an Anx's wrinkled, leathery skin, small eyes, and hunchbacked stature would naturally give the species something of an elderly aesthetic. They were easily underestimated in their physical ability.

Axum deftly slid past other Jedi roaming the halls, making minute course corrections in his gait to easily sidestep them, looking past them and to his destination, a wavering little Force-signature far in the distance. He passed through doors Force-gestured open, waving them shut behind him with a small smile on his face and wondering if children walking through automated doors felt like he did sometimes.

The misty golden sunlight of a slightly overcast afternoon met him as he breached the last door and found himself on the shores of a sea of sweet-smelling grass. The sky was mottled silvers and golds with the light, wispy cloud cover partially obscuring Dantooine's sun and scattering its light over the heavens. Brith were slowly, majestically winging their way toward the horizon to roost in their cliff-top nests for the night, and the scents of various life forms mingled in the breeze.

Axum breathed in all of this, his crest settling into a relaxed mauve, and then set off down the hillock this exit was placed on, wading through the "tall" grass-that only reached his knees. Being a large species had its advantages.

He followed the sun over hills and across wet-smelling streams, exhaling peace to a pack of blood-stenched kath hounds sentried beneath a thick tree. They watched him pass and then went back to dozing. Master Arathasis had taught all of her recruits ways to deal with the predators that didn't involve lightsabers. Learning how to use the Force to calm and pacify was a required part of the curriculum.

Finally, he reached the small thicket of stone ruins where he knew he would find the Padawan. Master Arathasis had told Axum that once, decades ago, this place held a dark side nexus, but the one who had fallen under its sway had untangled the grimy knot of darkness and dispersed its remnants to the wind. The ruins were a place of quiet contemplation now.

Or, a place to run away to. Mith was curled beneath a crumbling stone pillar, her long clawed fingers wrapped around her knees. Her distinctive deltoid head was resting against her thighs, her deep umber skin looking almost black in the fading daylight.

"Mith." Axum stepped forward slowly, not wanting to startle her although he guessed she could sense him if she wasn't too distracted. He could tell by her breathing she wasn't asleep, and he could smell her fear and anxiety.

The girl started and looked up—so, she hadn't anticipated him. She was still too new to remember to use the Force. In fact, she had only been at the Enclave a month. Progressing in combat, diligent in her studies, and miserable at getting to know the other students, Axum recalled. Her eyes were a marbled green. Unlike so many other of her species who were victims of deception or of their own lack of self-control, she had never tasted salt. Axum hoped she never would. The last thing the galaxy needed was a hallucinating Jedi.

"Master Manthus…I'm sorry," she said guiltily, her tongue flicking out instinctively to sample the air, probably to see if she could taste any anger there as she started to rise to her feet.

Axum motioned for her to stay seating as he deposited himself onto the eroded stone beside her, tilting his head curiously. Even sitting, he towered over her—he couldn't help that. "What troubles you, Mith?"

"I'm afraid," she admitted before falling silent and waiting for him to say something more.

"Of…?" Axum prompted. She was not one to talk about herself; he knew that from his classes with her. This could take a while.

"…I have been dreaming strange dreams," Mith continued, her viridian eyes unblinking as she studied the weathered cracks in the uneven, ancient stone. "They frighten me."

"Dreams?" Axum thought for a moment. Dreams had power; they were one of the most potent and direct ways the Force could speak to an individual. Master Arathasis often received important and specific information in her own dreams. "What about?"

The Arcona stretched forth one of her arms to trace abstract designs on the broken pavement. "…A dark force that consumes the galaxy," she explained, seeming haunted. "It swallows the stars one by one and revels in its own anger and power and despair. It comes as a tall figure in black armor; a round-eyed helmet covers its head and its breathing is as the hissing of a wounded animal." She looked up at the Anx. "It ravages worlds with legions of troops clad in bone. It is a frightening thing to behold, Master."

Axum watched Mith's face for a moment, noting the terror in her expression, a look which transcended all species barriers. "…Do you suppose it is a prophecy?" If so, it did not sound promising. His crest tinged orange in slight anxiety and unsureness. He wasn't quite sure how to comfort someone having nightmares, especially such weighty ones as these.

"I hope not." Mith's voice sounded very small and distant. "Because there is one more element of the dreams. A world that destroys other worlds. I know it is difficult to comprehend," she said, as the shocked Anx's crest had turned bright yellow, "but it is what I see, and it is terrible."

Axum sighed deeply, his eyes tracing the tiny twining vines that were slowly reclaiming the once cleanly-cut stone. He was at a loss as to what to do. Except…there was something Master Arathasis had taught him, long ago when he was new to the Academy. He looked up, the yellow fading into a purple determination. "Mith…let's try something." He placed his hands on her shoulders. "We are going to meditate together. I want you to try to call up those dreams again." He felt her tense beneath his long fingers. "Do not worry—I will be with you this time," he rumbled. "We will dream together and we will untangle this nightmare."

Mith nodded and closed her eyes, folding her lanky legs and settling into a meditative position. "Follow my breaths," Axum instructed her and she inhaled and exhaled as he did.

The evening slowly melted away and Axum felt as though he was drifting through the silent expanse of space for a while. Then, suddenly, there was a twitch—a tug—a _yank_ and all became whiteness and noise like a transportation tunnel on a city-planet, echoing incessantly so he could hear various sounds and things that seemed almost like voices but no words were intelligible, and he got the sensation of moving very quickly through something.

Then, the voices faded, the light leached away, and the two Jedi found themselves standing in a stark monochrome room like in a starship. The only outstanding characteristic of the room was a large black pod in the center of the floor, various wires and tubes connecting it with the ceiling. Axum was astonished to find that he sensed an incredible Force sink within the pod and wondered what it was.

"Something's wrong," Mith breathed, looking around, her eyes wide open and tongue flicking wildly. "_Really_ wrong."

"Is this what you normally see—" Axum began to say, but then with a hiss of hydraulics and escaping gases, the pod's top opened like an egg cracking to reveal an intensely white inside—and a black-armored figure sitting in the center, regarding them curiously as a mechanical arm finished fitting a helmet over its head.

"Who are you?" it asked irately in a deep, muffled voice that sounded more machine than human.

Axum was taken aback that the entity, ostensibly male, could actually see them; this felt far more real than most dreams should. He was also amazed that, despite the air carrying mostly the dry and metallic scents of machinery and the lingering smells of the gases in the pod, the powerful Force signature coming from this…man-machine was unmistakable. He was a living thing, as impossible as it seemed.

"Answer me!" the thing growled, clutching the armrests of its seat. "What spirits has Sidious sent to taunt me?"

The two aliens looked at each other, having no idea who this "Sidious" person was, then back at the dark vision before them. "I am Axum Manthus, Jedi Knight," Axum replied with a slow bow.

"Jedi?" The thing seemed to hold in a mechanically-regulated breath for a moment. "You are not from this time. I killed your precious Order," he gloated. "Tell me, why have you come?"

Mith quailed and began to back away, but Axum caught her arm and held her fast. "If you want these nightmares to stop you must discover why we have been summoned here," he reminded her in a low, reprimanding voice.

The Arcona sighed and turned back to the being that had haunted her dreams for weeks. "I'm Mith Yudit," she pronounced, trying to sound confident. "Padawan in the Jedi Order. Why don't you introduce yourself?"

"Gladly." The man stood up, towering over Mith but not even close to reaching Axum's height (Anx were not easily intimidated because of this). "I am Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. Again I ask, why are you here?"

Axum sucked in a sharp breath. Sith. He hadn't thought there were any of them left. Master Arathasis had taken care of them all, hadn't she? How had they come back? His mind was swimming in questions and he smelled clinical coldness and barren oxygen.

"…I've come to help you," Mith said decidedly. As the words escaped her mouth she glanced up at Axum, who merely looked back down at her, bemused at her choice of an answer.

"_You?_ Help _me?_" Vader chuckled darkly, a noise that sounded more like a hydraulic pump with a hiccup. He looked over the two phantom Jedi for a moment, his hand hovering near the lightsaber at his belt although Axum guessed the blade would do nothing to their incorporeal forms. Finally, the Sith Lord gestured for them to follow him out of the chamber and into a hallway that looked just as austere. When one was mostly machine, one cared little for aesthetics, Axum guessed as he ducked low to clear the doorway (this place was, evidently, not built to accommodate non-humanoids).

His black cloak billowing behind him like smoke from an industrial fire, Vader led the two phantasms along the hallway, reaching an enormous transparisteel window that looked out over a vast swath of illumination in a thousand colors with neverending streams of flashing, moving, shining things creating a three-dimensional grid around towering spires ringed with light. It took Axum a moment to realize he was looking at a cityscape. Coruscant?

"My master and I control all that you see here," Vader explained with a clenched, raised fist. "This, and thousands of other worlds. I have ground them all under my feet; my power far surpasses anything you know. So I don't see how I could possibly require any help from you unless you wish to abandon your restrictive Jedi principles and begin to sew havoc in whenever you come from." There was a sardonic tinge to his tone.

"…Do you use the world that destroys other worlds?" Mith asked quietly, placing her diaphanous fingertips to the windowpane as though she could rest on it. Being a not-quite-ghost was a new and unusual experience for her and Axum both. Axum guessed that she understood that they could not be physically harmed in this state, which would make her considerably less afraid of this dark demon.

Vader tilted his head slightly at her. "The Death Star? It won't be completed for another five years—how do you know about that? Are you from some future time to come?"

"I don't…think so," Mith replied, sounding slightly confused. "I have never heard of a 'death star'."

It was then that Axum realized Vader hadn't actually begun to employ it yet. That part of her visions had yet to take place in the time they had ended up in.

The Arcona turned away from the window and looked up at Vader's soulless ebony mask. "Please, don't use it," she begged. "It will kill countless numbers of people. It's an abomination."

"Yes, that is the point," Vader replied matter-of-factly, reaching behind his back to fold his hands there.

"He is a Sith," Axum felt to remind the Padawan quietly. "Remorse is foreign to them."

Mith wasn't giving up so easily. "Why do you do this?"

The question caught Vader off guard, although he hid it well and his breathing only changed rhythm momentarily. "Why? …Because I have nothing left," he admitted. "Your idiotic Order stifled and betrayed me. Because of the Jedi, everyone I ever loved and cared about is dead, or worse, _hates me_." His voice dripped with self-loathing; he hated himself as well. "So I am crafting a galaxy where there will be true order, and justice."

"How will this solve anything?" the Arcona asked.

"Everything's past solving." Vader wanted to let the weight of that sentence settle, but the young apparition refused to let the waters still.

"That's not true!" Mith replied, surprising Axum with her sudden dauntlessness. She'd proven to need very little prodding to break out of her shell. Then again, facing down a Sith Lord tended to be very much a sink-or-swim situation. "As long as you live, you've always got a second chance! Don't give up on yourself so quickly!" She was a swimmer.

Vader stood silent for an extended moment, staring at the alien, wishing he could cut her down like he could anyone else who dared talk back to him. "I wish you would hate me," he finally said quietly, turning to look out the window. They'd caught him at a bad time. He was unable to be the fearsome and ruthless Vader with them. Instead he'd been forced to reveal the Anakin drowning in anguish inside the armor. "It would make things easier for the both of us."

"Please, think things over," Mith urged. "It doesn't have to be like this. It's not too late…ow, what was that?" She looked down as though she had suddenly been pinched, although nothing had touched her.

"We are returning," Axum replied, flinching. "I didn't think we could sustain this state for very long…" He craned his thin neck and gave Vader what he hoped was a meaningful look, as the two ancient Jedi seemed to be pulled into nothingness with a snap of light.

Vader stood watching the empty hall as though he expected them to return, although he knew such was not the case. He had heard of the dead visiting the living, but these two did not act deceased and they held a difference Force signature than ghosts. They were…an anomaly in time, he supposed. He wondered why. He almost thought to look up their names in some archive somewhere to see when they had lived. How they had died.

Still trying to gather his thoughts, he moved to a lone greel-wood chair standing against the wall and sat down slowly. It was cushion-less and uncomfortable, but Vader could only vaguely remember a life free of discomfort. He couldn't go back to that, no. He was a self-made monster.

"Vader." A crinkly voice, brittle like dead leaves, sliced through the silence. Sidious was standing on the other end of the hall, his black cowl ensconcing his features and further obscuring them in the dim light. "What are you doing up at this hour?"

Vader turned his expressionless visage to face his master hatefully. "…I've been having nightmares."


End file.
